Public Turns Less Compassionate Toward Social And Welfare Services

May 18, 1986|By David Campbell

The recent impasse between Orange and Osceola counties will affect hundreds of underprivileged families in this county. Our county commission seemingly made every effort to salvage the Community Action and Head Start programs, but they are ''held hostage'' over insurance.

I am expressing my views as someone who considers the nationwide ''insurance crisis'' to be bogus, and as someone concerned about the people who will suffer further.

Community Action and Head Start appear to be on the verge of closing. Although Orange County administers both programs, neither county intends to provide insurance. Orange says it is not its responsibility to accept liability for programs benefiting Osceola residents. Osceola says it cannot insure programs it does not control.

The public's perspective regarding social services is increasingly less compassionate. I see an alarming and callous disregard for the less privileged, as if poverty is the most cardinal of sins.

Community Action provides emergency assistance to families needing food, medicine and other basic necessities. They provide these services largely to people who live here and who have nowhere else to turn. They make every effort possible to help the ''legitimate needy'' and those who experienced their plight through no fault of their own -- lost jobs, illness or disability.

They also help people through the bureaucratic maze of what welfare programs do exist and turn to the community for the rest -- such as Help Now, the United Way and local ministerial associations.

Picture children who are hungry in Osceola County -- not Bangladesh -- and a proud 58-year-old welder who cannot pay his electric bill after a stroke. Imagine not being able to afford medication after a serious and prolonged illness that wipes out a family's savings and home.

Here we are in the United States, one of the richest nations in the world, and there are rising levels of unmet human need and great distress. The rate of poverty is the highest in 20 years; children have replaced the elderly as the largest group of poor. Twenty million citizens of our nation suffer from hunger. Homelessness has become a national disgrace. The income gap between the lowest income groups and the highest is widening.

Stress-produced child abuse and domestic violence among all socioeconomic groups is rising to frightening levels. Millions die or are handicapped because they cannot afford adequate health care.

Human misery is dismissed with easy explanations of just consequence and inferior genes. There has been, I think, a distressing erosion of the commitment of Americans to equity, justice and human compassion.

We all are vulnerable. We all may need help some day. Help of all kinds is needed to try to keep these programs alive.

It may be that Help Now or another agency would be allowed to take over the programs. That is likely to require a lobbying effort before both county commissions.

If you would like to demonstrate your interest in your fellow man, please call Community Action at 846-8734.